by Leo Hunt
“I —”
“Or, I could release him. I will do so if you wish. He’s free to enter any afterlife that will take him, or he may haunt the living world for eternity. It would no longer be my concern. But know this: If I give him up, it comes at a price. You have already had your boon. You will forfeit all of Horatio’s earthly goods. I will give nothing to you. To release this man, who is rightfully mine . . . it would be a trade. Something for you, something for me.”
“And if I let him go . . . what would be your price?”
“I leave it for you to decide what your father is worth.”
“I wouldn’t know,” I say. “I don’t know what you’d want in exchange.”
“When the time comes, you will know.”
I don’t know what to say. I want to run away into the mist and never come back. I don’t want to see either of them again. I’m so angry, I can hardly think straight. My own brother . . . I had a brother. You weigh yourself against someone else and what do you end up with? How much is my Dad worth? How much am I worth? What does my life matter to anyone except me? What can I give the Devil? . . . I had a brother. I think of the Host, of the Shepherd’s waxy face, cold and hating and hating. I think of dead fingers holding tight against a bare branch. I think of the sunrise over Dunbarrow, a pink sunrise, like a burn. I think of the mist and the heather and the light-green doorway in the stone. What might be behind it. Don’t you know me? I do know you, now. I try to think of Elza, and all I can picture is a faint sketch of her, a mass of hair and smudged eyes, and what does the Devil . . . you can’t ask me to make a choice like this. Who deserves what? It’s too big. Dad should go to the darkness. I think of his money, the dreams of cars and houses coming back so hard it’s like a fist in my chest. He made his choice. You can’t make me pay for him. Except who am I to judge? He ought to go to Hell, or wherever the Devil will take him.
Except.
Except he’s my dad.
I have to let go.
“He’s free,” I tell the Devil.
He raises his eyebrows.
“And here I was, thinking I knew you better than that, Luke. What makes you want to save your father? What has he done to deserve this?”
“Because . . . he’s my dad. I can’t send him away with you.” I pull the sigil from my finger and throw it away into the mist. I take the Book of Eight from the pocket of my coat and throw it away, too, the green book vanishing into grayness. I look the Devil in the eye. “I never wanted any of this. I don’t want revenge on my dad, if that’s what you think. No matter what he did. The Shepherd wanted revenge, and look where that got him. I have to let go. I don’t want money, I don’t want power. I don’t want to be a necromancer. I want you to let us both go.”
Dad is crying, silently.
“I have to let go . . .” the Devil says slowly, like he’s tasting the words. “What you did to deserve this, Horatio, I can’t say.”
“Son —” Dad lunges forward, the barrier between us now removed, and he hugs me. He’s cold, and smells of earth. I stand for a moment and then push him away.
“I’ve let go,” I say. “But I don’t forgive you. Maybe not ever. If you go free, I don’t care where you go, but don’t come near me and Mum again.”
“Of course,” he says, looking down at the sand. “I know I did you both wrong. I hope in time you will understand more fully, and forgive —”
“Don’t even say that word to me,” I tell him.
“You’re certain?” the Devil asks. “Shake my hand and our deal is done. There will be no going back.”
“I can’t give him to you.”
“Very well. You are in my debt, Luke Manchett. I shall return,” the Devil says. “One day soon, I shall return to your side and expect repayment. Remuneration, to make his freedom worth my while. Don’t think I shall forget, because I never do.”
“Done,” I say.
“You have until then,” the Devil says.
“Luke, thank you, thank you so much, son —”
“Don’t talk to me,” I tell Dad, and look away.
The Devil holds out his unlined palm. Dad looks like he’s choking for a second time, as if he can’t believe his luck. I can’t believe he’s getting out of this either . . . but I’ve chosen. I came to a crossroads and this is my path. I reach out and take the Devil’s hand in mine.
“Remember what I am owed, Luke,” the Devil says, and squeezes my hand. For a moment nothing happens, and then there’s pain like fire scouring my palm. I grind my jaw and stamp my feet on the sand to keep from screaming.
You must always remember, his voice whispers again, and now the shape of the man, Mr. Berkley, is exploding outward and the beach is gone and Dad is gone and I’m gripping something like a paw, a hand with searing claws and I hear music whirling, a violin playing faster and faster, and I see cattle hosed down with napalm beneath a sky heavy with crows and faces burst apart underneath black boots and snakes are crawling from deep pools and these pools are somehow eyes, yes lidless white eyes, staring and I see a beast’s shape billowing like smoke and for the first time I understand what it means to say the word Hell.
I shall return.
My eyes are open.
There’s something sticky and hot draped over my face, furry and close and out of focus, and it grumbles when I try to grab hold of it and push it off me. I splutter. Ham’s face resolves above mine; my entire field of vision is filled by his mad marmalade eyes and gigantic snout. He licks at me again. The sky behind him is an incredible color, violet and pink, with clouds like blobs of molten gold.
“Where’s Elza?” I ask my dog. “Where’s Mum?”
He bumps his nose into my face. Slowly and carefully, I sit up. One of my arms is asleep, but other than that I’m fine. I lift my coat and shirt, trying to find the stab wound, but there’s nothing there. The Devil seems to have been true to his word. I didn’t die today. I’m lying in the middle of the Footsteps, with my feet pointing toward the tallest of the stones. My legs and back are covered in mud. There’s dried blood on my shirt and trousers. The magic circle Elza drew is still here, a wobbly yellow scrawl in the moss, already washed away in some spots. I can see fresh cobwebs woven inside the hoof-shaped indents on the tall stone, all the strands sparkling with dew.
Mum is curled up next to the flattest stone, covered in dried mud. She looks asleep, which isn’t any improvement over the past fortnight. Her hand is still wrapped around the knife. For a moment I’m afraid to even touch her, afraid that I’ll find her cold as the stone she’s lying beside, but the hand on the knife handle is warm and soft, and a faint pulse still beats in her wrist. I stand up, breathing in and out, and then throw the knife as far as I can into the undergrowth.
“Seriously, where’s Elza?” I ask Ham again. “Did you hide in a hole this entire time? What happened to her?”
Ham grumbles and then turns, trotting away from Mum and the Footsteps. I take my raincoat off and drape it over Mum, for all the good that’ll do, and follow him. I don’t want to leave her, but I have to find Elza. I try to focus on the golden clouds; they’re a hopeful color, I think. Ham seems like he’s leading me somewhere, and I try not to think about finding a body under a tree, crushed up and empty like a bird that fell out of the nest. I follow Ham through rust-orange bracken and over a stony hillock, out past a rotting birch tree and onto the muddy rutted track we climbed last night in the rain. I follow him farther up the track, around the next bend, and I see Mum’s yellow car parked under a tree. I suppose the demon had Mum drive herself up here. Ham runs on up to the car and starts to bark.
The passenger-side door opens, and Elza gets out, grinning. Ham capers around her. I give her a tight hug.
“I thought you might not make it,” I tell her.
“I thought the same,” Elza says.
Elza looks rough. Her hair has lost its shape, whatever shape it had to start with, and the back is crushed flat, with the rest exploding in any direction it fee
ls like. There are orange leaves stuck up at the crown of her head. Her legs and coat are covered in dry chocolate-colored mud, and her hands and sleeves are covered with the yellow paint she used for the magic circle. Her gaze is bleary and unfocused, and I realize she must’ve just woken up.
“What happened to you?” she asks.
“You first. I don’t even know where to start with what happened to me.”
“Did you meet him?”
“Who? The Devil?”
“Yes, obviously I’m asking about the Devil. What was he . . . it . . . like?”
“Well, he wasn’t red . . . no horns either. No pointy tail. He was my dad’s lawyer.”
“He was who?”
“My dad’s lawyer. Mr. Berkley.”
“Your dad’s lawyer was the Devil . . .” Elza says, shaking her head. “Would you believe me if I said, at this point, I’m not even surprised? You’ll have to tell me more about that . . . but, it’s over? You’re free?”
“Yeah,” I say. I look up at the sky, which is lightening to a delicate chilly blue. I’ll tell her what really happened, I’m sure I will, but not now. I don’t want to talk about Dad and the Innocent and the deal I made with Mr. Berkley, not under a sky that looks like this.
“The Host is gone,” I tell her.
“I can’t believe it,” Elza says. “That’s amazing. We did it.”
“What happened to you? Last time I saw you, the Prisoner —”
“Oh, my gosh, Ham ate him,” Elza says.
“He what?”
“I was running, Luke. I had no idea where to go. No way of helping you or knowing what was happening. I fell and broke the flashlight in the first five minutes, and then I was just on my own in the rain and the dark. I could hear Ham somewhere but I wasn’t sure exactly where, and I think I must’ve been doubling back on myself, heading back toward the Footsteps, when they caught me. The Prisoner came whistling down out of the trees and got hold of me somehow. It was just cutting at me with those shears it had, cutting something out of me. Like life or hope or something? I don’t know how to explain it. I was fading, like everything felt really far away and I was ready to let go, and the last thing I’d have seen was his horrible shriveled-apple face. And just as I — Ham ate him! Ham came bowling out of the dark and ate the Prisoner.”
“I’m having a hard time picturing what that would look like.”
“Me, too, and I saw it. He came and got his jaws into the ghost, and it was screaming and trying to stab Ham with the shears, but they were going straight through him and he wouldn’t let go, and the ghost just got thinner and smaller and thinner and smaller like smoke being sucked back down a chimney. And the Prisoner was gone.”
“Did you see the Judge? The skinhead?”
“He was there, but he didn’t do anything. He just watched, and then when Ham came to save me, he disappeared. And then the fog came out of the Footsteps and I didn’t see any ghosts after that. Why do you ask?”
“No reason. Good boy,” I say to Ham, who’s been waiting beside us. “I’m sorry I called you a coward. Clever dog.”
“I suppose it’s like the Book of Eight said,” Elza remarks. “Ghosts can be destroyed in the body of an animal familiar. I just never imagined Ham would count.”
“So he could’ve eaten the Shepherd this entire time? How does that work?”
“Maybe it’s after you possessed him? I don’t know anything about familiars, really.”
“I’d ask the Book,” I say, “but I got rid of it.”
“You did?” Elza says.
“Gave it back. It’s gone.”
“Well, that’s good,” Elza says, smiling. “That’s really good. I didn’t like that thing. But, yes, your hound saved me.”
“Well,” I say to Ham, “I suppose we’ll know for next time.”
Elza laughs. “So anyway, I got back to the Footsteps,” Elza says, “and they were basically gone. There was fog everywhere, like the whitest, thickest fog you can imagine, and it was pouring out of the Footsteps somehow, coming from the center? I’ve never seen anything like it. The ghosts were gone and I couldn’t see you either and I got . . . lost, I suppose, in that fog. I mean, I found my way to this car and got in, but there was something wrong with time. It was passing in a weird way, because it felt like a whole night just vanished while I sat there. I could see the stars even through the fog, but they were moving faster than I’ve ever seen them go. It was like a dream. And then I think I was actually really asleep, and Ham was out here barking and I woke up.”
I look at Elza, at her dark messy hair and the streaks of gold the dawn is painting on her face. We made it. We’re still alive. The ghosts are gone and we’re still here, together in a sunlit forest. She’s stopped talking, and looks back at me with an intent expression.
There’ll never be a better moment than this. I lean forward and down, and her mouth meets mine. Her lips are warm and soft and I press her against the side of the car, running one hand down the back of her neck. Elza pulls me closer against her, her fingernails prickling against my scalp, her tongue —
Ham leaps up and nearly knocks me over. I stagger back from Elza, who laughs as Ham continues to prance and paw at me.
“I think he’s jealous,” Elza says. Ham scampers a few paces back down the road, then looks over his shoulder and whines.
“He wants us to follow him,” I say.
“Where’s your mum?” Elza asks.
“The demon was using her to . . . well, it doesn’t matter now. She was asleep next to me, in the stone circle. She seemed all right.”
“Well, this was nice, just the two of us,” Elza says, “but I think we should go and see if she’s awake.”
Elza picks a leaf from her hair as she speaks, and grins at me, and I look again at her face in the dawn light, the delicate orange leaf held in her hand, the perfect curve of her eyebrows and the masterful arrangement of freckles on her cheeks, and I think to myself that sometimes it is worth plunging into darkness, worth clinging to life even as a cold river tries to sweep you away, because there are moments like this waiting on the other side.
We make our way back from the track to the Devil’s Footsteps, all three of us bone-tired and dirty. When we get back home, I’m eating two dinners and then sleeping for a week. Ham leads the way, holding his straggly tail up like a banner. The peacock colors of the early dawn are fading, the sun now rising past the heather-covered hills that swell beyond the forest. The highest branches of the oak trees are highlighted in searing gold. Pigeons explode squalling from the bracken as Ham rushes past, making Elza and me start.
“What do they even do down there?” she asks. “Can’t they sleep in a tree like normal birds?”
“They’re probably eating worms or something.”
“Well, it’s inconsiderate. I thought my heart would stop. I’m still completely on edge.”
“The Host’s gone, Elza. It’s not coming back.”
“I know. I’m just amped up. I want to go and hit a punching bag.”
“Am I still going to see you now all this is done?” I ask.
“What do you mean?”
“Will we still —”
“I heard what you said.” Elza looks at me, her green eyes filled with amusement. “I just couldn’t believe you’d imagine we’d just go back to you kicking a soccer ball at me from across the schoolyard? Of course we’ll still see each other.”
“Good. I’m not sure I’ve got any other friends left.”
“Well, that’s very flattering. Knowing I’m your only choice.”
“I didn’t mean it like that —”
“I know,” Elza says with one of her infuriating grins. “You’re extremely easy to tease. Anyway . . . that’s her, isn’t it? On the stone.”
“Yeah,” I say, “there she is.”
As we make our way across the clearing, Elza slips her hand into mine.
Mum’s sitting on the flattest stone of the Footsteps, the one s
he stabbed me over. White face, bronze hair, my raincoat wrapped around her body. Ham is already with her, pressing his head into her chest so she can rub his shoulders and neck. She’s staring absently up into the gold-tinted tree branches, and looks down only when we cross into the ring of stones.
“Luke,” she says.
“Mum.” I kneel down and wrap my arms around her, Ham butting and nibbling at both of us. I break away, and I see that she’s crying a little.
“What happened?” she asks. “Where are we?”
“We’re up at the Devil’s Footsteps. It’s near Dunbarrow High. You’ve been ill.”
Mum nods and looks at the trees. I don’t really know what else to say to her. How am I going to explain all of this? How can I say that I’ve missed her? That for days I thought she would die, too? That she killed me? That I’ve met her other son? I don’t know how to tell her any of it. I don’t know if I ever will. I settle for an introduction.
“This is Elza Moss, Mum. She’s a friend.”
“Ms. Manchett,” Elza says, extending her hand.
Mum shakes Elza’s hand, looking at the dried paint on Elza’s sleeves and hands with obvious curiosity. Ham is on the other side of the hollow, rooting about in a bush. The wind makes ripples on the shining surface of the nearest puddle. Elza moves closer to me, and I feel her leg resting against mine.
“Why are we all here?” Mum asks. She’s taking this much better than I would. She’s got the bemused face of someone who thinks they might not’ve woken up properly. “I’ve been having the worst dreams. I dreamed I was . . . buried. I was underground, and I didn’t think I’d ever get myself out . . . and then I heard your voice, and your father’s . . .”
“We need to talk about that,” I say gently. “When you heard the news, you had a bad reaction. You weren’t well. And last night, you tried to run away —”
“What happened, love?” Mum asks. “What news? What did I do?”
